The First Red-Green Government and the Alliance for Jobs

Abstract

Unimpressed by the failure of social concertation by its predecessor, the Red-Green government openly promoted the idea of revitalising the Alliance for Jobs as the key policy-making device for the reduction of unemployment and the reform of the welfare state in consensus with social partners. Chancellor Schröder intended to pursue a corporatist strategy in order to overcome the reform gridlock, which had particularly characterised the last term of the Kohl government. The renewed Alliance for Jobs was equipped with an elaborate institutional structure, which included a ‘benchmarking group’. This group of academic experts provided comprehensive problem analyses of the German political economy and policy recommendations on various issues. This policy-relevant knowledge is especially interesting for an analysis of policy learning in the formulation of Red-Green labour market reforms. Thus, the significance of the Alliance for Jobs, including its benchmarking group, needs to be investigated carefully in order to develop an understanding of Red-Green labour market policy from 1998 to 2002. With the setting up of the Hartz Commission in early 2002, the Alliance was marginalised as a policy-making device.